…”Nor wear any silk lace or guard upon her gown, kirtle, waistcoat or petticoat, or any other garments, safe only a cape of velvet; nor any fardingal at all, either little or great, nor any body or sleeves of wire, whalebone or with any other stiffing, saving canvass or buckram only.” [1]

Pad stitching back panel- Notice the stitches are bigger and further apart. I don’t need as much support in the back.

Completed right side

[1] Some account of the Worshipful company of grocers of the city of London- BY BARON HEATH (John Benjamin Heath)

…”Nor wear any silk lace or guard upon her gown, kirtle, waistcoat or petticoat, or any other garments, safe only a cape of velvet; nor any fardingal at all, either little or great, nor any body or sleeves of wire, whalebone or with any other stiffing, saving canvass or buckram only.“[1]

Lack of bodies that have boning, reed or whalebone cuts down on the number of things that can be used to create breast support. Fortunately, canvas and buckram are fairly stiff and can be pad stitched. For this project I am using linen canvas. Smaller stitches provide greater support. I was dubious that this was going to work. But it has produced a layer that is much stronger with the pad stitching. And after a couple dozen stitches, I finally started getting the hang of it. Guidleines helped immensely. I have one of 4 front panels completed. It took about 2 hours.

“That none should wear on her head any lawn, cambrick, tiffany, velvet lawn, or white silk wires, either in any kerchief, koyfe, crest cloth, or shaddow, nor any linnen cloth therein, saving such linen cloth only, as should not exceed 5s. the ell, nor any lace or edging upon the same or any part thereof“… [1]

English ell is equal to 5⁄4 yard, or 1 ell= 1.25 yards.

£1 = 20 shillings (s)
1s = 12 pence/penny (d)

Measuring Worth [2], calculates a 16th century £1 = £199.10 in 2014 values. In US dollars £1 = $1.57, or $321.54 to £1 in the 16th century. [2] This mean a female would be restricted to linen that is under 5s per ell or modernly, $62.22 per 1.25 yards.

Linen used in this project retails for $9.75. It is a nice medium weight linen, with an even weave. It performs well in a work environment and holds up well under repeated laundering. I am using a basic woman’s coif pattern as seen in extant examples.http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O251169/coif-unknown/

Here is the completed coif and forehead cloth.

The edges have been left unadorned as per the requirement:
“nor any lawne, velvet, tiffany, cobweblawne, nor white silk cipres at all, other than about their neck or otherwise ; nor any linnen cloth but of the price of 5s. the ell, or lace or edging whatsoever, but plain hem and one stitch “[1]

[1] Some account of the Worshipful company of grocers of the city of London- BY BARON HEATH (John Benjamin Heath)
[2] Lawrence H. Officer and Samuel H. Williamson, “Five Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a UK Pound Amount, 1270 to Present,” MeasuringWorth, 2015. http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/relativevalue.php

As part of my A&S path, I am trying to put together a proper clothing kit for “Alesone.” She is a Grocer’s apprentice in 16th century London, England. There are a number of statutes she would be bound to follow, from class to trade for what she would be allowed to wear. I am starting this dress diary to track the progress of her apprentice clothing. Let’s begin with what restrictions were placed upon her. https://sugarwricht.wordpress.com/2014/02/09/apprentices/.

And as with the other diaries, we begin with the intended design.This is a blue kirtle with a dark gray over dress. Starched whites complete the outfit. This represents a middle class English woman, appropriate to time, place, and station.

Design based upon the illustration by Lucas de Heere, Drawing of Four Citizen’s Wives, from his manuscript Corte Beschryuinghe van Engheland, Schotland, ende Irland, c.1574 located here.

Just a reminder that all of my confectionery work has been moved to it’s own blog. All my conserves, syrups, paste, persona and science experiments relating to confections can be found at http://sugarwricht.wordpress.com.

I have Charcot Marie Tooth (CMT), which I’ve had all my life. I have had a number of surgeries to stablize my feet, that make finding shoes difficult. I wear skateboard shoes pretty much all day, every day. Finding shoes for late period SCA is even harder. I’ve tried many different types of shoes, all with limited success. I am a reasonably good costumer, but often get comments on how my shoes detract from the over all appearance of my clothes. I am also a sword fighter. I need close toed shoes with reasonable arch support in order to fence on grass and uneven surfaces.

On the Elizabethan costuming FB group, someone posted a link for how to modify a pair of loafers into a period-esq latchet shoe. Loafers generally do not pass the CMT shoe flex test, so I needed something with a bit less flex. I modified a pair of black/black vans to simulate a latchet shoe. Rather than experiment on a new pair of shoes, I took a pair of Era that I had a hard time wearing on the list (don’t mind the pennsic that is still on the shoes). They are black with black soles and laces. Only equipment needed was a black sharpie, sharp fabric scissors and a little bit of fray check.

I cut along the seam line to create the open shape of the latchet.

I had pressure points on my foot with the full tongue, so the tongue was cut into an hourglass shape.

This is the final result. Fray check the seam and use a black sharpie to blacken the red logo on the back of the shoe.

On my feet:

So far they don’t hurt and they will pass a 2-3 foot rule. I’m calling this a win as I can also fence in them. Now that I know they work, I can get the Atwood flavor of van and do the same treatment as these work best for my feet. And I will have time to break them in for the upcoming war/fence all the things season.